I LOVE shaping surfboards and I'm kinda obsessed with this craft. Even though I am about to shape my 205th board I'm still considering myself as a novice but I hope to become a master one day... This blog is a virtual portfolio and a diary of my journey in the shaping world. Feel free to leave comments or contact me directly at valerie@meremadesurfboards.com.

Valerie Duprat

-Shaper of Mère-Made Surfboards

Friday, July 10, 2015

board#075: shortboard for Yannick (Keltic Surf Academy 1/5)

Dimensions: 6'0 x 20 1/8 x 2 7/16[completed in December 2014]

The story: Yannick is a surf instructor from Brittany, France. He owns Surfing Iroise surf school. He was the official surf instructor of a surf trip organized by Cedric Henry, president of the Keltic Surf Academy. Cedric took a handful of french surfer to California last february. He had the brilliant idea to have some boards custom shaped in California instead of paying the airline fees or wasting precious surfing time shopping around for boards. He contacted me and asked if I could make 5 boards for his customers... I started to panic because of the short notice (in addition to an existing waiting list) but I could not resist this new challenge. I loved the idea! I had to dive into that project. The good news was that Christmas break was approaching. I could definitely use some vacation days to complete all 5 boards in time.

The shape: Yannick was very brief in his emails to me and it was not easy to have a sense of what he wanted exactly. I worked on his shape basically on keywords: shortboard, Sub Scorcher II, light, double wings, swallow tail. I mixed a couple of templates and had a lot of fun shaping that DW-swallow!

The artwork: the artwork description was even briefer than the shape description. Yannick wanted a plain white board. This couldn't be more opportune with 4 more boards to go after that one!